Heres a paperi wrote on this. id you want to use any of this/see me sources PLEASE JUST ASK ME. DO NOT JUST COPY THIS PAPER AS YOUR OWN.
Harry Readinger
9 December 2004
The Morality of the War in Iraq
The United States chose to invade Iraq for many reasons; the September eleventh tragedy, the apparent buildup of weapons of mass destruction, the barbarism Saddam Hussein exhibited towards his people, and the harboring of many terrorist factions. Alone, each of these reasons is justification for retribution. There have been a lot of conflicting opinions regarding the motives of our country’s leaders and their decisions for engaging Iraq. As a result, our country has become divided. Wherever you go you hear people speaking passionately about the morality and/or immorality regarding the conflict in Iraq. It has become a political hot potato. We are attempting to achieve democracy for a part of the world that has never experienced anything but dictatorships and theocracies. Are we justified in trying to impose this almost uniquely European system into the Middle Eastern culture? It is the belief of the terrorist Muslim factions that the Koran teaches the annihilation of Western influence. Where is the morality in the religion that preaches death and destruction? Let us examine these important questions, look at the opposing views, and see where the church might take us, and facts might separate us.
The Iraq war is unlike any other war. It is a conflict with invisible adversaries and faceless opponents. On one side there is the United States army, clearly identifiable, and on the other a multitude of Islamic terrorist factions. This confrontation is dissimilar from any other as the American troops do not know who they are fighting until they find themselves within the crosshairs of the enemy guns. The Geneva Convention, which took place in an effort to civilize modern warfare, stipulates soldiers must wear uniforms. The terrorists are not wearing uniforms. The rules of the Geneva Convention do not exist on the battlefields of Iraq. How are the armed forces of the US supposed to engage in the ‘correctness’ of war if the other side is not playing by the rules? This new kind of warfare, according to our global laws of war, is illegal. One side is not playing fair. When I was a kid playing with other children we had rules for the games we played. If someone broke a rule or made up their own as the game went along to suit their needs we considered that to be cheating and not playing fairly. These were and still are learned reactions to the teachings of our parents and the Church. The Ten Commandments clearly state that we should not lie, or deceive others to further our own needs. Why does the US have to follow the rules when the insurgents do not?
Conversely it is our aim to democratize a nation that knows nothing of democracy. Through this process we are teaching the Iraqis a whole new game. In the New York Times article “An Islamic Democracy for Iraq?†they address exactly this issue. It asks the question, is democracy the best solution for Iraq? To answer that we must see what kind of government Iraq implemented before the United States invaded. Iraq has never had any experience with democracy. Saddam Hussein was the ultimate ruler in a dictatorship. As is the case with many dictatorships, Saddam silenced any one who spoke against him and used fear to keep people in line. Very few Iraqis remember their country being governed any other way. They know no other form of government, so can we go in their and change their methods overnight? That would be like China coming to the United States and telling us that in the morning we would become a communist country because it is “better†then our current system. How would the United States react to such a claim? The possible reactions are debatable but it stands true that our system of democracy is proven to be more stable then dictatorships in general. As an American, I have known no governing system save democracy. It is my belief that imposing a democracy onto Iraq is the right thing to do. It will allow Iraq to flourish as a nation. In a democracy the wealth of a nation is spread out rather evenly, as opposed to a dictatorship, in which the dictator tends to keep more then his share of his countries money for himself. Over the twentieth century, the bloodiest in human history, almost all of the major abuses of political power have come from dictatorships. Communism alone over the last century has killed over 60 million people, enough to fill 600 Rose Bowls. Yet dictatorships still exist today, many are based off of “religionâ€, which serves as a good excuse for political abuses. In the end, can a democracy succeed in Iraq, a country that has never before known secular government? Iraq has, before the times of Saddam Hussein, been ruled by Islamic law. They have never seen a just government that did not make its decisions strictly based off of religious principles. Is it moral of us to take away their religious governing system, when the United States believes that the only way to build a successful government is to keep religion and government separated?
Apart from the change in government, another reason we went to war was to eradicate terrorists that were hiding out in Iraq. One concern in fighting terrorism was, what exactly terrorism was. Is terrorism just a crime that incites fear into people? If that is true then any violent crime is terrorism. Is terrorism a crime committed by a person labeled as a terrorist? No, if it was then when Osama Bin Laden jay walks, it is considered an act of terrorism. Terrorism is not about the people who were killed. Its main aim is to incite a feeling of alarm through a community, or society. This form of “warfare†is not only illegal, but exceedingly immoral. In the newspaper, when it shows that eight Iraqi police officers have been killed by a suicide bomber, the real goal of terrorism is realized. Their biggest victory is getting a headline in a major American news source. The blatant disregard of life is beyond any moral reasoning. Any moral being would condemn the acts of these terrorists
“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty (Bennett).†This is exactly how terrorists attempt to show the United States as an international thug. As a country that can not mind its own business. When the United States went into Iraq, it went in with the intentions of a regime change, and to eradicate terrorism. We went to liberate Iraq. The terrorists, many of which are anti-American and anti-democracy, cringe at the idea of having a government established in which one person can not be in total control. A democracy lessens the opportunity for “religious†violence without punishment. To try to neutralize the United States savior figure, they make the case that America actually disrupted the peace of Iraq. The terrorists say that the dictatorship was ruling Iraq peacefully, until the United States came in and disrupted that peace. This is a total fabrication. The United States certainly made Iraq temporarily more violent, but in the long run Iraq has been made more peaceful, benefiting all countries.
When I started writing this paper I had a strong belief that the war in Iraq was not only beneficial for the Unites States, but also Iraq, and also a fully moral decision. Upon the completion of this paper I had my doubts as to the moral implications of this war. Not that the United Sates went for selfish reasons, but that it went for reasons that may not have been, in the long-run, fully beneficial for Iraq. The change in government is a big issue for me. Even though I support democracy, we are imposing it on a country that has almost always been ruled directly by religious people. Morally we can not impose our standards onto another country. However the expulsion of Saddam Hussein was one of the redeeming moral issues of the war in Iraq. With Saddam gone, Iraq has its first opportunity in a very long time to allow its true self to show.
